Cowen is a beaten docket, but he's feeling good about it

DÁIL SKETCH:Just when it's far too late, the Taoiseach's appetite for the fight seems to have returned

‘LA COMMEDIA e finita.” A pensive Martin Mansergh was talking Italian. Unlike his party leader, our erudite Minister for Stately Homes and Looking at Floods is a realist.

"In my opinion, l a commedia e finita," he told the Seanad, sounding sad as he arched an eyebrow and gazed wistfully into the middle distance.

“The comedy is over.”

That’s what Mansergh said. He’s dead right.

But nobody, it seems, is willing to tell Brian Cowen (except broadcaster Seán O’Rourke, who had the temerity to suggest as much on the lunchtime news. A belligerent Taoiseach had to be dug out of him.) Cowen spent all day yesterday loudly labouring under the impression that the Fianna Fáil show is still on the road and he remains the star turn.

He sounded like he couldn’t wait for the general election to begin so he can crush the Opposition with his brilliance and rally all those prodigal voters to his side. Now, when it’s far too late, his appetite for the fight has returned and his energy levels seem replenished.

When the Taoiseach wasn’t giving gung-ho radio and television interviews, he was in the Dáil laying into the Opposition while bellowing about how “proud” he was of all the achievements wrought by Fianna Fáil over the last 13 years.

Biffo is a beaten docket, but he’s feeling good about it.

Out and proud, that’s the current position.

The Taoiseach was on fire in the chamber.

Sharp, feisty, passionate, combative, persuasive, funny. The handful of backbenchers who came in to hear the boss deliver his defence of their Budget were delighted, in a puzzled way, with his performance.

Yes, he was good. But so what? In the corridors, they shrugged their shoulders at this latest intimation of genius: been there, heard that, don’t buy the Taoiseach any more.

Cowen has morphed into Lazarus on continuous loop – written off, miraculous recovery; written off, found his mojo; written off, new beginning; written off, watershed speech; written off, a man reborn ...

He’s a write-off refusing to recognise the recovery truck.

So Cowen digs in his heels and roughs up the Opposition – it’s effective too, as he strives to drive a wedge between the policies of Fine Gael and the policies of Labour. It’s not a difficult task.

Neither Kenny nor Gilmore was impressive yesterday. Eamon sounded flat while Enda veered towards the daft with his homely anecdotes.

The Government continues to “cripple the spirit of Ireland”, he intoned, before introducing “the person in this small sweetshop in Donegal who said to me ...”

What did he say, Enda? Whadiddysay?

The man said to the leader of Fine Gael: “What is it you want?” There was a pause, after which we expected “a packet of wine gums and a sherbet fountain”. But no. The story went over our heads.

Cowen curled a contemptuous lip.

“I’ve got here a letter from Japan,” Enda quivered, “where the taxi drivers in Osaka talk about Ireland in a negative way.” Oh, merciful hour. We’re the talk of Osaka now.

Cowen snorted.

But the comedy is over. Does it even matter whether Biffo is party leader come the election? He’s fighting now for personal pride, for party honour, for pig iron. Ironically, he’s playing to his strengths.

Maybe the news of the Minister for Finance’s mode of transport yesterday morning brought the harsh reality home to Minister Mansergh, causing him to have his little contemplative moment in the Seanad.

We were appalled too when we heard it.

A Government Minister? In a Ford Mondeo? The indignity.

The sight of the princely Brian Lenihan being driven around in a six-year-old family saloon must have chilled our pampered political generals to the bone.

The floodgates will open in Cabinet now, with Ministers citing intolerable circumstances as they scuttle, screaming, towards their handsome pensions.

It has come to this for the L’Oréal generation of Irish leaders. (Motto: Because we’re worth it!) Mid-range family cars. We hear the Cabinet has formed a support group.

No wonder the Minister for Finance looked a bit dazed when he gingerly poked a toe out the passenger door upon arrival at RTÉ for the post-Budget phone-in.

The interior didn’t smell of leather. Apparently the seats were covered in some strange sort of substance which ordinary folk call “fabric”.

He probably had a bit of a headache from the air freshener. An ’04 registered Mondeo from the Garda pool endures the sort of life that can’t be masked with just the one pine-scented Magic Tree.

The Minister’s handler certainly had a headache. When he opened the boot to retrieve some documents, the locking mechanism didn’t engage and the lid hit him.

That was after somebody noticed him fretting in the back seat after his boss had rushed ahead but he couldn’t get out because of the child locks.

At the end of Budget night, Brian Cowen was chauffered from Leinster House in a silver 4x4 vehicle – it looked like a Toyota.

Biffo’s sidekick Batt O’Keeffe left at the same time in his State BMW, not a car which could be classed as an austerity drive. Batt likes to maintain standards.

We hear that brave Brian Lenihan was bearing up very well in the Mondeo. Some even said he was quite pleased with himself, setting good example, and all that.

The truth is that the Mondeo has front-wheel drive and was deemed more suitable for icy roads. “But we are gradually moving over to this type of car – it’s part of the new plan,” said the official who was hit on the head by the boot.

At least the Taoiseach can console himself with the strong vote of confidence he got from Green Party Coalition colleague, Paul Gogarty, who was tapping away on his laptop in the chamber when Enda dismissed Cowen’s contribution as a “speech of desperation.”

Gogo looked up and remarked: "It was a rollicking speech of desperation; give him that much." La Commedia e finata. (As they say in the stately homes of Tipperary.)